Just started trading and my firm is charging me .003 for taking liquidity from the ARCA book, but they do not credit me .002 for adding liquidity.

They say this is how everyone does it. Don't want to just believe it and be taken advantage of. Anyone know if this is the standard?

Thanks in advance.

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Interactive Brokers doesn't do it that way. If you select their unbundled commissions model, IB gives you all your rebates, and gives them to you immediately, just like it charges you for your fees. If you select their bundled commissions model, IB gives you no rebates, but it also charges you no fees, and you instead pay higher commissions at $0.005 per share. Unbundled commissions can be substantially cheaper, depending upon how much trading you do and how much of your trading provides liquidity instead of taking it.

Interactive Brokers doesn't do it that way. If you select their unbundled commissions model, IB gives you all your rebates, and gives them to you immediately, just like it charges you for your fees. If you select their bundled commissions model, IB gives you no rebates, but it also charges you no fees, and you instead pay higher commissions at $0.005 per share. Unbundled commissions can be substantially cheaper, depending upon how much trading you do and how much of your trading provides liquidity instead of taking it.

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Can anyone here please provide a quick rule-of-thumb about when the unbundled schedule gets cheaper in stocks? 10k shares a month? 1 million shares a month? Roughly...